German TNG Blu-ray Season 4 Collector’s Edition: A Look Inside

Last Thursday saw the release of Star Trek: The Next Generation – Season 4 on Blu-ray in Germany. In addition to the standard set, Paramount Germany have issued a parallel Limited Collector’s Edition release to continue their line of special steel-book sets.

The set comes in an attractive brushed metal steel-book and sports the same cover art as the international release, both front and back. On the spine of the set you’ll find the continuation of an image montage featuring the whole cast – once you have all seven seasons lined up next to each other, the full image will be revealed.

Fans of the high quality pins which accompany these sets won’t be disappointed as this season is bundled with a rather shiny Starfleet Command logo pin which – as is now customary – is isolated from the steelbook so as not to scratch your set.

Finally, as we covered in an earlier article, the German Season 4 release (both this steelbook and the standard cheaper release) comes with the retailer exclusive “Trek Not Taken” bonus feature. You’ll find a code included inside the set which unlocks an area of Paramount Germany’s website where you can download the feature. Four download options are presented, with standard- and high-definition versions available with or without German subtitles.

Steelbook version of TNG Season 4

Set contents including Starfleet pin and redemption code for exclusive VAM

Once you buy all the Collector’s Editions, the spines line up to form a montage of the cast

7 Badges are available in total, along with a special presentation case

Wonder why the U.S. seasons were not designed as a steelbook or with the art on the spine? oh well…

archer9234

Just to save money.

Name

Simple. TNG ist the MOST popular STAR TREK incarnation in Germany. People connect far more to Picard, Riker and Data, than to Kirk, Spock and McCoy. TNG reruns still have good ratings.
All the TNG movies outgrossed STAR TREK 2009 (yes, even NEMESIS did here in Germany).
Germans love TNG. And the first print of the season 1 and 2 steelbooks was already sold out completely!!! Due to popular demand, amazon.de ordered another set of those.
Btw. Germany is the only country outside the US and UK to release the feature film cuts of the TNG two part episodes.

OphidianJaguar

Steelbook ok, but I dont need the pins and other nick nack swag that comes with it. I can also do without the spine art, I prefer the cleaner look of the lettering with the designs, pictures are for children lol “oh look its Worf and Data! That mean’s its STAR TREK!

I am a fan of steelbook, many of my movies are in steelbook including the two new trek movies, all the batman movies, the 5 Resident Evil movies. The steelbook could be offered in the U.S. and Canada…hell worldwide as an option or to those who pre order as an incentive, that way there would not be many made, the studio can keep costs down and people who really want a steelbook could have it and those who want something cheaper can go with plastic, its a win win win.

Odd that they include a season 1 poster with a season 4 disc set.

Regardless, the U.S./Canada Star Trek blu-ray’s be it TOS, TNG, or ENT are beautifully presented. The visual and auditory quality of these remastered series in HD and surround are reward enough. Its Star Trek as I have never seen and head before.

Mart

That S1 poster has been in every steelbook so far.
It’s actually the backside of the episode descriptions.

Hauke Fischer

Damn, I regret not collecting the steelbook set. I was put off a bit back when season one came out and I heard they had slapped the pin into the package next to the steelbook, scratching and denting it all over…
Would have looked awesome on my shelf….

James

Hmmm, I quite like the pins – is it region free?

Maybe I should stop buying any more box sets (I only have 1 season at the moment) as I suspect that a super-special edition of all 7 seasons will be released at some point (maybe with all the special features and other incentives). I remember a similar thing happening with the DVD’s after I’d plunked down huge amounts of cash to collect the individual seasons. Then again as OphidianJaguar says, it’s just nick-nack swag.

The artwork is interesting – it looks like the cast are all in Season 1 clothing / makeup. Except for the beautiful Marina Sirtis who is sporting a special hair-do that I think she only wore in Man of the people and Relics. Wonder why that is?

BrianRoskamp

In the US, there were the individual DVD sets and then a set that packaged all 7 individual season together, and then one collection that was all 7 seasons in a single package. The former was identical to the individual releases, but the later did contain a bonus disc with 3 new special features (2 x 20th anniversary specials, 1 x VFX roundtable).

Hopefully these bonus features will be included with the bluray sets at some point (season 7 maybe?), but I hope we don’t see re-releases with exclusive features like they did in this case.

ErikEspo

I would also like to know if the German steelbooks are region free. Also I would like to know what audio tracks are included.

Bjoernar Dohm

That’s the beauty of it: All TNG blu-rays are region-free.

pittrek

I start to think that I buy the German steelbooks. Does anybody here want to buy relatively unused UK boxes ? 🙂

archer9234

It’s cool you guys are reviewing the international version and their goodies. Australia has it that when you buy all 4 seasons of Enterprise. You get the bridge wall plaque.

Linc

What do we Aussies get when we buy all 7 seasons of TNG?

archer9234

Nothing. Only ENT has the plaque thing.

Linc

So we buy 7 seasons and get nothing, yet ent fans only have to buy 4 and receive a plaque? Ridiculous.

archer9234

Yeah. I don’t get it either.

BrianRoskamp

I don’t have a vast bluray collection (Star Trek, Batman, Rocky franchises at this point) and every time I debate getting the standard boxart or steelbook. The standard always wins, I don’t see the advantage to paying extra for a special case that doesn’t match the rest of my BR collection. I will say they look cool and I always debate which one to get though.